"We are very pleased to complete this sale to Sun Capital," said Michael Vels, executive vice-president and CFO of Maple Leaf Foods. "This sale completes the transformation of our protein operations that we began in late 2006 to support our value-added meats and meals business with our highly efficient, scale fresh pork processing facility in Brandon, Manitoba."

Maple Leaf Consumer Foods will maintain a strong relationship with the Burlington business, which will supply its eastern Canadian operations. There will also be a continued relationship with the Rothsay rendering business, which will continue to provide services to the Burlington operation.

"The Ontario pork-processing business is an impressive facility with significant potential to increase production levels,” said Anthony Polazzi, Principal at Sun Capital Partners. “We are fully committed to growing the business, bringing our investment experience in the food-processing industry to bear, working closely with hog suppliers and serving the markets with top-quality products. We believe there is opportunity to further expand into international markets and build out the company's market share for specialty and value-added products. Maple Leaf Foods will continue to be an important customer as we move forward."